and I have only the inhuman
consolation that I may one day, like a cannibal, eat up my
enemies. This is but dull fun, but what else have I to tell
you about? It {p.010} would be worse if, like Justice
Shallow's Davy, I should consult you upon sowing down the
headland with wheat. My literary tormentor is a certain Lord
of the Isles, famed for his tyranny of yore, and not
unjustly. I am bothering some tale of him I have had long by
me into a sort of romance. I think you will like it: it is
Scottified up to the teeth, and somehow I feel myself like
the liberated chiefs of the Rolliad, "who boast their native
philabeg restored." I believe the frolics one can cut in
this loose garb are all set down by you Sassenachs to the
real agility of the wearer, and not the brave, free, and
independent character of his clothing. It is, in a word, the
real Highland fling, and no one is supposed able to dance it
but a native. I always thought that epithet of Gallia
_Braccata_ implied subjugation, and was never surprised at
Caesar's easy conquests, considering that his Labienus and
all his merry men wore, as we say, bottomless breeks.

Ever yours,

W. S.

Well might he describe himself as being hard at work with his Lord of
the Isles. The date of Ballantyne's letter to Miss Edgeworth (November
11), in which he mentions the third Canto as completed; that of the
communication from Mr. Train (November 18), on which so much of Canto
Fifth was grounded; and that of a note from Scott to Ballantyne
(December 16, 1814), announcing that he had sent the last stanza of
the poem: these dates, taken together, afford conclusive evidence of
the fiery rapidity with which the three last Cantos of The Lord of the
Isles were composed.

He writes, on the 25th December, to Constable that he "had corrected
the last proofs, and was setting out for Abbotsford to refresh the
machine." And in what did his refreshment of the machine consist?
Besides having written within this year the greater part (almost, I
believe, the whole) of the Life of Swift--Waverley--and {p.011} The
Lord of the Isles--he had given two essays to the Encyclopaedia
Supplement, and published, with an Introduction and notes, one of the
most curious pieces of family history ever produced to the world, on
which he labored with more than usual zeal and di